Clay Richie

A significant number of people have died due to misdiagnosis of their medical conditions done with the best of intentions. One can be right the wrong way and vice versa. Such is life. The nephew and closest confidant of President Muhammadu Buhari, in a BBC Hausa interview days ago, called for merit in deciding who governs Nigeria at the expiration of Buhari’s tenure.

“…Leaders in general possessed huge components of both good and evil. Some had a little bit more evil than others. I always had difficulty understanding how Obasanjo could sit with us and preach about sacrifice and transparency one moment and then the next, sit with the GMD of NNPC about how to get some payments to the PDP. Studying Bismarck, De Gaulle…helped me make sense of this duality in leaders. It appears that this is a skill that must be possessed to be able to ascend to a certain leadership level. I am hoping that this skill can be acquired, as I would very much like to master it someday.” — Nasir El Rufai, The Accidental Public Servant Gov. Nasir El Rufai is a brilliant individual. A first class graduate in Quantity Surveying from the Ahmadu Bello University; he also holds a law degree from the University of London; an MBA from Harvard Business School; and a Masters degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, again in Harvard University. You

In discussing the theory and practice of corruption in Nigeria, Godswill Akpabio is a compelling subject. He has enjoyed this dubious distinction since his days as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State. Per capita, Akwa Ibom is about the richest state in Nigeria and the tendency in Nigeria is that the bigger the state treasury, the bigger the theft of those resources by those in whose care the riches are entrusted. To give the Nigerian public an idea of his husbandry of the resources of the state, Akpabio, at the expiration of his two terms tenure as Governor, committed the state to paying him N100million annual medical allowance in perpetuity as part of his retirement benefits.

  Telling the Truth: The Most Significant Step Towards Peace and Reconciliation in Kaduna State, Nigeria Lately, the government of Kaduna State constituted a committee to draft a White Paper on Zangon Kataf, whose original name is Mabātādo, given the lingering conflict in the area connected to the ownership of the land. While I support everyone to live wherever they find suitable to pursue their livelihood, historic accounts show that the present-day Zango Kataf became a stopover point, from about the 1750s, for Fatake, mostly Kanuri and Hausa traders.

The Nigerian Government’s decision to reopen schools for students in exit classes and allow the country participate in this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a welcome development. It is also heartening to know that the ministry of education has finally come up with a comprehensive schedule for other national examinations. Of course, some people might say the ministry’s response was rather too late; it is better late than never. Some of us are simply excited that at long last, we are getting some clear signals from the managers of our country’s education sector. No doubt, past government’s contradictory pronouncements caused a lot of confusion among students and stakeholders alike.

Three weeks ago, on 10th July, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Appropriation (Repeal and Amendment) Act, 2020 into law. At the signing ceremony, the president explained that although he had assented to the 2020 Appropriation Act on 17th December 2019, a revision became necessary as a “response to recent developments, in particular, the COVID-19 Pandemic”. This followed the collapse of crude oil prices in the world market “from a high of $72.20 per barrel in January 2020 to below $20 per barrel in April 2020.”

Amidst the utter confusion around COVID-19 and the swirling conspiracies some of which are believable or at least should be investigated, a worrisome statistic about future population outcomes rented the waves about two weeks ago. In short, the statistic, published by Vollset, S. E. et al for The Lancet, an academic journal, which for the purpose of my write-up but it must be mentioned, is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, concluded that by the year 2100, Nigeria’s population will be around 750million. The same report holds that Chinese population will have dropped from the current 1.4billion to 700million. India’s population too, according to the report, will have dropped from 1.3billion presently, to barely 1billion people. Well, I am going through the entire article to see the rationale for the halving of the Chinese population within 80 years and why the otherwise thriving Indian population will recede by 300million people, while Nigeria hits the roof.

Since the lockdown began on account of the global coronavirus pandemic, online meetings and virtual events to last a life time have taken place. This new cultural moment has inspired what is now popularly called “new normal” — a brand new world that is creating endless possibilities for online engagements and increasing opportunities for e-commerce. Business survival now depends on pivoting to areas where these opportunities exist.

  A couple of months ago when I had a long conversation with one of my close friends, Big Brother, the TV global franchise, crept in very unconsciously. We had no idea that season five was close to the stage of execution. We were talking about the lockdown forced by COVID-19 and how the worst colours of our nation were coming out, all for the very base reason that emotions and weaknesses couldn’t be kept within normalcy and had boiled over for the sake of the lockdown.

A few days ago, I looked at the quality, class and worth of folks, who fought and secured our independence and those who led us from the 60s through 70s and that of those governing us today and it was a walk in the park for me to clearly see that today’s men and women—occupying varied leadership positions cannot stand shoulder to shoulder with our founding fathers and those who led us in the 60s through 70s!

The word “Abdication” has two meanings. The first applies to when a monarch relinquishes his throne. The second, when anyone in a position of authority chooses to neglect or ignore his duties. The latter applies to General Muhammadu Buhari.

In the course of last week, both chambers of the National Assembly took up the issue of failing security across the land. Whilst the Senate asked that the service chiefs be sacked, the House of Representatives interacted with the security agencies.

The last one month has witnessed a celebration of crime and corruption in Nigeria, from Ramoni Olorunwa Abbas, aka Ray Hushpuppi, to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, and the management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which the president supervises as Minister of Petroleum Resources, to the Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, and the leadership of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to the Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and everything in between. 

Time, it is said, a revealer of all things as it would help to unravel lies and perpetuate the truth. This is exactly the case with a former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen. Onyeabor Azubuike Ihejirika who was at the helm of the Service from October 2010 until January 14, 2014. He was subjected to so much scrutiny, harassment, accusations and unsubstantiated allegations throughout his tenure by groups and individuals with vested interests. But like Jesus asked Mary Magdalene, after his traducers abandoned their mission of stoning her; “woman where are they accusers?” They have all disappeared!

“The children of the poor you failed to train will never let your children live in Peace” Chief Obafemi Awolowo

Following my last article titled “Forget the pretence, APC will swim and sink on Tinubu’’ which received quite an appreciable response, many readers called and wrote to ask me to “finish the job’’. By this they meant I should not just stop at analysing the issues currently raging in the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the place of its national leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the whole conundrum. They wanted me to go ahead and dissect the chances of Tinubu getting the APC’s presidential ticket and the presidency in 2023 should he elect to run.

Take them to government house or Aso Rock’ – Borno residents reject reintegration of ex-Boko Haram fighters" -The Cable.

Why is Nigeria like this? Don’t look too far: the answers are well articulated in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) saga. I would say NDDC is a microcosm of Nigeria. If you understand the genesis of NDDC, as well as the latest revelations, you do not need to stretch too much to understand why Nigeria is perpetually moving towards the apocalypse — at full speed. The worst mistake you would make is to look at the NDDC scandals, snigger and conclude that the people of Niger Delta have underdeveloped their own region. That would be a poor reading and a misjudgement of the currents and undercurrents of the spectacle unfolding before our very eyes.

In a developing country such as Nigeria, one of the major functions of the government is the provision of infrastructural services to the citizens. This infastructural services include electricity, schools, hospitals, pipe-borne water, good roads and as well as ensure a rise in per-capital income, poverty alleviation to mention a few but in order for these services to be adequately provided, government should posses enough revenue to finance them. 

Recent reports about the trajectory of the COVID-19 in Madagascar shows an uptick in the rise of infections and deaths. According to reports, public hospitals in the country are only admitting patients with severe symptoms because the surge in cases has simply overwhelmed the healthcare facilities of the Indian Ocean island nation, which lies approximately 400 kilometres (250 miles) off the coast of East Africa.

After lying prostrate for over four decades, President Muhammadu Buhari has given approval for the Ajaokuta Steel Plant to be revived as part of his administration’s deliberate strategy to diversify the economy. Our over-dependence on oil revenue, from all indications, is hurting the economy and it cannot last forever. The world is changing due to rapid disruptions in technology and we cannot afford to be left behind; in fact, the train has since left the station. It means we have to adapt to changes taking place in the world for our own good.

  On August 1 2019, he arrived home in Kaduna, after a long day. He drove in and was about to lock the entrance gates when, like in a movie, gunmen appeared and in the words of his wife, those men “…accosted him and took him away in his car.” His family waited, hoping he will return the same night. They waited and waited. The waiting dragged on from a day, a month, to months and now, one year.

“It should be clear to the National Assembly that their incestuous relationship with the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) on which they have oversight responsibilities cannot continue. It is an open secret that many of our lawmakers are the leading contractors in some of these MDAs where they deploy their oversight powers as a weapon of blackmail and intimidation…”

The corruption scandal rocking the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC as well as allegations of financial misdemeanour against its now suspended acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu, more than anything else has proved Nigeria’s problem of corruption a systemic one, which an individual or agency can fight successfully. The institutional and leadership failure of the Magu led EFCC in its duty as the arrow head of the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s war on corruption has further revealed the corrupt problem of Nigeria as not an event that can be fought by an agency but a process that has endemically etched itself like a cancer on entire system hence requiring a people driven process to effectively contain.

The embattled Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Mustapha Magu, regained his freedom recently after more than a week of detention and interrogation in Abuja. Magu, it would be recalled, was picked up and handed over to the presidential panel investigating the alleged graft-related 'offenses' of the anti-corruption czar. Magu was given an ample opportunity to defend himself against the weighty allegations ranging from re-looting of the recovered loot to laundering of funds to ownership of choice properties abroad.

The vision and promise of the United Nations is that food, healthcare, water and sanitation, education, decent work and social security are not commodities for sale to those who can afford them, but basic human rights to which we are all entitled – Antonio Guterres

As we enjoy the Niger Delta special corruption opera playing on the nation’s prime time shows, we should reflect deeper on the fate of Niger Delta’s trapped peoples. I think this crisis should convince anyone who really pays attention that the region does not need special interventions. It needs just justice. Give the region justice and see how it transforms into a prosperous and peaceful habitation. Justice would mean decisive action to regulate oil business, single-minded commitment to invest significant oil revenue in quality human and physical infrastructure and institutionalization of fiscal sovereignty and democratic accountability in the region.

It is a show of shame isn’t it, what is going on at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)? Established in the year 2000 to assuage the fears of the people of the Niger Delta and address their concerns about the lack of infrastructural development in the region, despite the region’s contributions to the sustenance of Nigeria, it is sad to see how like all good initiatives gone bad in Nigeria, this interventionist agency has become, or has been exposed as a festering sore upon the wound of the Niger Delta. From personality clashes to sordid tales of mismanagement of funds, contractors that collect mobilization fees and simply take a walk, politicians in the National Assembly feeding fat on Niger Delta resources, and reports of terrifying wasteful expenditure and the conversion of every event or situation: graduation ceremonies and even COVID-19 into an opportunity to empty the people’s till, the stench from the NDDC stinks to the heavens. In the past week, we have been treated to

Desperation abound when poverty of the mind colludes to accommodate impunity and conspiracy theory motivated by political prebendaries who are the purveyors of all social vices. 

Let me thank Pastor Adebayo Oseni for the invitation to participate in this important conversation. This is a huge topic which requires volumes. We focus narrowly on Nigeria’s public sector leadership and attempt to provoke debate with just a few random remarks.

Anyone watching the drama playing out at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between the Minister of Niger Delta, Godswill Akpabio, and his hand-picked immediate-past Acting Managing Director of the Interim Management Committee (IMC), Ms Joi Nunieh, must have by now given up on the calibre of people in leadership positions at all levels of governance in this country. There is almost always a lack of sincerity of heart and purpose in the actions and inactions of our leaders. The country is laden with treasury raiders and men of plunder and avarice masquerading as agents of a new beginning. Is it any wonder the once promising country is failing on all fronts?

A great mind such as Tony Elumelu, founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF); Chairman of UBA, Africa’s Global Bank, and Chairman of Heirs Holdings, an African investment conglomerate, amongst several other interests, needs little or no introduction. He is God’s gift to Nigeria, and then Africa. But Elumelu’s larger than life image obviously transcends the boundaries of Africa, making him a global citizen. The focus of this essay will be more about his amazing philanthropy and burning desire to create enduring prosperity and social wealth in Africa by empowering entrepreneurs and enhancing competitiveness of the private sector.

These are not the best of times for the Buhari Administration and its image minders. When Nigerians expect firm and decisive steps, what they see or perceive are tentative actions bordering on lack of capacity and inability to rein in disparate interests of gullible and often greedy politicians.

The ruling All Progressive Party (APC), is a house of mirrors where a game of cloak and dagger is going on presently. The key elements of the game are stealth, surprise and deception. The players in this game are currently circling around like the gladiators of old in a Roman amphitheatre sizing each other and looking for weak points to strike a fatal game ending blow.

Just like the All Progressive Congress, which was driven by very poor judgment to ask him to pilot its affairs, there is no doubt that having Mr Adams Oshiomhole as the National Chairman of the ruling party was a horrendous mistake, which, by the way, should surprise no one given that there is hardly anything the APC has got right since 2015 when Nigerians naively (or, more appropriately, blindly) stampeded themselves into inflicting the malformed party on themselves.

  Dear President Muhammadu Buhari, I come to you in peace. Nevertheless, I do not have a nicer way of putting this to you: your government is falling apart. I do not know how to make it sound less brutal. That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — at least judging from where I stand. I have not seen a government so openly at war with itself like the one you have been heading since 2015. I will be honest and say when you were being inaugurated on May 29, 2015, I expected a lot of negative things to be said about your stewardship, but I never for one moment thought you would be accused of heading a government devilled by chaos, indiscipline and corruption.

Fellow Nigerians, before the general elections of last year, I thought I had seen enough of the shenanigans of those in power. Things got so bad that I simply gave up. I even vowed to stay on my lane and let the heavens fall on all of us, if it must. Any independent and impartial observer would have concluded that those elections would be neither free nor fair. Any objective Nigerian watching from the inside, and participating, would also have felt the same. Both major parties were guilty of denying the Nigerian people the fair elections they desired, but the major culprit in ensuring the elections were certainly not free was the ruling Party. What we therefore ultimately witnessed was not an election. It was a shambolic, reckless and irresponsible act of crass political brigandage.

At the last count over 183 countries according to John Hopkins University, have been affected in one way or the other by the CoronaVirus pandemic with global infection rates passing 13,589,273.

If we were to be honest with ourselves, it is hard not to be corrupt in Nigeria. I imagine this would cause a lot of anger in many honest compatriots and it is understandable. However, this sometimes impulsive, other times hypocritical posturing is itself, one of the core problems of Nigeria. A problem acknowledged is half solved but like the ostrich, most Nigerians bury their heads in the sand when corruption is brought up. That failure to accept our reality is a major impediment to dealing with this cankerworm.

One of the key questions posed months ago revolves around the post pandemic realities; essentially, what next?

  If you have been following events on the Nigerian political scene, then you would know about the protracted battle between the erstwhile national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and the incumbent governor of Edo state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki. The feud cost the former his exalted position in the party and forced the latter out. But what is the real cause of the rift? What is Obaseki’s grave sin? Well, I’ve got answers.

Nigeria is a country where irony comes to die. As Elnathan John, the author, regularly says, “You can’t write satire for Nigeria, the country will always top your creativity.” Thus it is that I feel a bit of deliciously hilarious irony when I see headlines about the man who illegally warmed the seat at the EFCC for a long time, Ibrahim Magu. For Magu, I feel zero sympathies. I must admit that to some extent, I’m even enjoying what is happening to him. Hey, I am a Nigerian, and I love a good drama.

If taking public money was considered such a big deal, according to Joy Nunieh’s account, her colleague confessed he would kill anyone at the instruction of Godswill Akpabio before bothering to ask why the person had to die. But Akpabio has countered that Nigerians must not believe that story until we seek clarification from “all her (Nunieh’s) former husbands—at least four of them that she had married in the past”.

Dear Minister, Permit me without further ado to add my voice to that of many other Nigerians that have been urging the Federal Government to rescind its decision on Nigerian students as regards the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). You have told us that the Federal Government would not allow Nigerian pupils to join their counterparts in other African countries to take part in this year’s WASSCE.   

On Wednesday, news broke that Abdulaziz Yari, former governor of Zamfara state, allegedly failed to abide by the protocols in place to ensure safety of passengers and staff at the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, just one week after local flights resumed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Remember that time when one of Nigeria’s top-rated universities patented a disruptive technology that became the darling of venture capital firms in all of Silicon Valley? Me neither. Yet, the Ndubuisi Ekekwes and Kunle Olukotuns of this world had gone outside the shores of this land to achieve unbelievable feats. This is no witchcraft.

  Once I observed that a number of newspaper publications have fallen to thirty two pages shortly after the ugly debut of COVID-19, I knew that the Media was going to be in serious trouble. Even in good times, the Nigerian media enterprise scraps for survival, employing all the logics in the books to be able to pay salaries and embark on daily operations. Just trying to remain in business and avoid closure which would signal a business misfortune and of course a dearth of infotainment service provision.

Who is afraid of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s nominee for the soon-to-be-vacant post of Director General of the World Trade Organization? I ask this question because over the weekend, her media adviser, my long-time colleague, Paul Nwabuikwu issued a statement in which he alleged that some “powerful and well-connected forces” in Nigeria were working hard, manufacturing controversies, and “peddling outright lies” to sabotage Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s chances for the WTO top job. Paul Nwabuikwu could not have issued that statement without Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s approval.

In November 2019, there was a furore in the Nigeria civil society space when two bills were introduced into the House of Representatives. Officially known as the “Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill 2019” and the “National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches Bill, 2019”, they quickly gained public notoriety as the “Social Media Bill” and the “Hate Speech Bill.”

This might be the defining moment for the Buhari administration. It is not on account of the Coronavirus pandemic even as disruptive as it is. It is not necessarily because of the distressed economy. The man has been unlucky to wrestle with two recessions in a four-year tenure. The defining moment is on account of the corruption tales trending on social and conventional media.